On the soliton width in the incommensurate phase of spin-Peierls systems

We study using bosonization techniques the effects of frustration due to competing interactions and of the interchain elastic couplings on the soliton width and soliton structure in spin-Peierls systems. We compare the predictions of this study with numerical results obtained by exact diagonalization of finite chains. We conclude that frustration produces in general a reduction of the soliton width while the interchain elastic coupling increases it. We discuss these results in connection with recent measurements of the soliton width in the incommensurate phase of CuGeO_3.Comment: 4 pages, latex, 2 figures embedded in the tex

Hole-Pairs in a Spin Liquid: Influence of Electrostatic Hole-Hole Repulsion

The stability of hole bound states in the t-J model including short-range Coulomb interactions is analyzed using computational techniques on ladders with up to $2 \times 30$ sites. For a nearest-neighbors (NN) hole-hole repulsion, the two-holes bound state is surprisingly robust and breaks only when the repulsion is several times the exchange $J$. At $\sim 10$ hole doping the pairs break only for a NN-repulsion as large as $V \sim 4J$. Pair-pair correlations remain robust in the regime of hole binding. The results support electronic hole-pairing mechanisms on ladders based on holes moving in spin-liquid backgrounds. Implications in two dimensions are also presented. The need for better estimations of the range and strength of the Coulomb interaction in copper-oxides is remarked.Comment: Revised version with new figures. 4 pages, 5 figure

Effects of interladder couplings in the trellis lattice

Strongly correlated models on coupled ladders in the presence of frustration, in particular the trellis lattice, are studied by numerical techniques. For the undoped case, the possibility of incommensurate peaks in the magnetic structure factor at low temperatures is suggested. In the doped case, our main conclusion for the trellis lattice is that by increasing the interladder coupling, the balance between the magnetic energy in the ladders and the kinetic energy in the zig-zag chains is altered leading eventually to the destruction of the hole pairs initially formed and localized in the ladders.Comment: final version, to appear in Physical Review

Effect of nonmagnetic impurities on stripes in high-Tc cuprates

We perform the numerically exact diagonalization study of the t-J model with nonmagnetic impurities to clarify the relation between Zn impurities and the stripes. By examining the hole-hole correlation function for a two-hole \sqrt{18}x\sqrt{18} cluster with a single impurity, we find that the impurity has a tendency to stabilize vertical charge stripes. This tendency is caused by the gain of the kinetic energy of holes moving along the stripes that are formed avoiding the impurity.Comment: 3 pages including 2 figures. Proceedings for ISS2000 (Tokyo, October 2000). To be published in Physica

Magnetic field effects and magnetic anisotropy in lightly doped La_{2-x}Sr_xCuO_4

The effects of the application of a magnetic field on the diagonal stripe spin-glass phase is studied in lightly doped La_{2-x}Sr_xCuO_4 (x=0.014 and 0.024). With increasing magnetic field, the magnetic elastic intensity at the diagonal incommensurate (DIC) positions (1,\pm\epsilon,0) decreases as opposed to the increase seen in superconducting samples. This diminution in intensity with increasing magnetic field originates from a spin reorientation transition, which is driven by the antisymmetric exchange term in the spin Hamiltonian. On the other hand, the transition temperature, the incommensurability, and the peak width of the diagonal incommensurate correlations are not changed with magnetic field. This result suggests that the magnetic correlations are determined primarily by the charge disproportionation and that the geometry of the diagonal incommensurate magnetism is also determined by effects, that is, stripe formation which are not purely magnetic in origin. The Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya antisymmetric exchange is nevertheless important in determining the local spin structure in the DIC stripe phase.Comment: 7 pages, 5 figures, to appear in Phys. Rev.

Optical conductivity of the Hubbard model at finite temperature

The optical conductivity, $\sigma(\omega)$, of the two dimensional one-band Hubbard model is calculated at finite temperature using exact diagonalization techniques on finite clusters. The in-plane d.c. resistivity, $\rho_{ab}$, is also evaluated. We find that at large U/t and temperature T, $\rho_{ab}$ is approximately linear with temperature, in reasonable agreement with experiments on high-T$_c$ superconductors. Moreover, we note that $\sigma(\omega)$ displays charge excitations, a mid-infrared (MIR) band and a Drude peak, also as observed experimentally. The combination of the Drude peak and the MIR oscillator strengths leads to a conductivity that decays slower than $1/\omega^2$ at energies smaller than the insulator gap near half-filling.Comment: 12 pages, 3 figures appended, Revtex version 2.0, preprin

Vanishing of the negative-sign problem of quantum Monte Carlo simulations in one-dimensional frustrated spin systems

The negative-sign problem in one-dimensional frustrated quantum spin systems is solved. We can remove negative signs of the local Boltzmann weights by using a dimer basis that has the spin-reversal symmetry. Validity of this new basis is checked in a general frustrated double-spin-chain system, namely the J_0-J_1-J_2-J_3 model. The negative sign vanishes perfectly for $J_0 + J_1 \leq J_3$.Comment: 4 pages, REVTeX, 4 figures in eps-file

The susceptibility and excitation spectrum of (VO)2_2P2_2O7_7 in ladder and dimer chain models

We present numerical results for the magnetic susceptibility of a Heisenberg antiferromagnetic spin ladder, as a function of temperature and the spin-spin interaction strengths $J_\perp$ and $J_{||}$. These are contrasted with new bulk limit results for the dimer chain. A fit to the experimental susceptibility of the candidate spin-ladder compound vanadyl pyrophosphate, (VO)$_2$P$_2$O$_7$, gives the parameters $J_\perp = 7.82$ meV and $J_{||} = 7.76$ meV. With these values we predict a singlet-triplet energy gap of $E_{gap} = 3.9$ meV, and give a numerical estimate of the ladder triplet dispersion relation $\omega(k)$. In contrast, a fit to the dimer chain model leads to $J_1=11.11$ meV and $J_2=8.02$ meV, which predicts a gap of $E_{gap} = 4.9$ meV.Comment: 16 pages, 6 figures available upon request, RevTex 3.0, preprint ORNL-CCIP-94-04 / RAL-94-02